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Testing, testing, is this thing on?

I’ll admit, I’ve never done a blog post before so if your computer/phone explodes or something from viewing this it’s probably my fault. Last time I did a trial run for a blog post a popup came up that literally said I had reached the end of the internet.

How’s that for an introduction?

Anyway, welcome to my blog!

If you’ve liked my Facebook page or if you follow me on Instagram, you know that all 5 of the songs on my EP “True North” earned a week-long feature on the ReverbNation homepage! This is huge because I’m an unsigned artist, so I need this exposure to get the attention of record labels and gig companies. And it’s all thanks to YOU!

We went from #21 to #1 on the Seattle, WA Singer-Songwriter charts in just ONE WEEK!

Last week, ReverbNation featured my song Chapter Two. For my first blog post, I wanted to share a little bit about the song and how it came about.

If you actually bought Taylor Swift’s 1989 CD, you know that she included 3 bonus “tracks” at the end explaining her songwriting process. She says that the reason she’s still so in love with songwriting is because the process is never the same. I love songwriting for that same reason; it’s different every single time. It can take months, or it can take minutes. A rough draft can include just guitar chords or an entire band. It can start when you’re sitting at a piano, or driving to pick your sister up from school.

Wanna know something cool?

The picture above was taken on June 11, 2015, the day I started writing Chapter Two. Yep, that’s the actual piece of paper that I wrote all the lyrics on. *woaaaah* I was sitting on a bench by a pond in Auburn, Washington, waiting for my tennis match to start. Totally random right? It took me over a year to finish it, but that’s where it all started.

A lot of the time, when I’m writing songs, I’ll write what I want to hear. You know how you have playlists for different moods? Like an upbeat playlist for running, a slower playlist for when you want to relax, and a girl-power playlist for when that guy that asked you on a date just totally blew you off? Yeah, I have those too, but sometimes the songs on those playlists don’t cut it for me; so I just write my own. At this particular moment, I wanted to hear a hopeful song, so I started writing a song about a story with a happy ending. After I got the general idea written down, I left it alone for a few months, and then I heard “Turning Page” by Sleeping at Last. If you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and listen to it because it is absolutely incredible. Seriously, this guy is amazing, every song of his is straight poetry. What I wouldn’t give to talk with him about songwriting. Wow.

Anyway… there’s one line in the song that really stood out to me:

“every kiss is a cursive line, every touch is a redefining phrase”

When I heard that for the first time, I really started to look at my life as a story. Over the next few months, I finished bits and pieces of the song while keeping that in mind; every decision I made added a new word. Every day that passed was a new page. But what instigated the end of a chapter, and the beginning of a new one?

I guess it’s just defining moments in your life. For me, it was a breakup. I know, typical Taylor Swift songwriting, right? But like I said before, I wanted a hopeful song about a happy ending. I finished writing the song right after the breakup, still hoping that there was more to the story, still hoping that there was a Chapter Two to look forward to. “Everyone has a chapter that they just don’t read out loud”, and I was hoping that we could start it all over.

Some songs just leave you hanging, don’t they? (;

I hope you liked hearing the story of how I wrote Chapter Two! Stay tuned next week for another ReverbNation feature, and think about sharing Chapter Two with someone you think could use a song with a happy ending(:

Click the button to listen to Chapter Two on Spotify, the lyrics are below!